Modest Architecture

The Teaching of the Altar Ramp

Do not ascend My altar by steps, that your nakedness (ervatcha) be not uncovered upon it.
—Exodus 20:23

וְלֹא תַעֲלֶה בְמַעֲלֹת עַל מִזְבְּחִי אֲשֶׁר לֹא תִגָּלֶה עֶרְוָתְךָ עָלָיו

THAT THY NAKEDNESS BE NOT UNCOVERED — because on account of these steps you will have to take large paces and so spread the legs. Now, although this would not be an actual uncovering of one’s nakedness (of the parts usually kept covered), since it is written, (Exodus 28:42) “And thou shalt make for them (the priests) linen breeches [to cover the flesh of their nakedness]”, still the taking of large paces is near enough to uncovering one’s nakedness that it may be described as such, and you would then be treating them (the stones of the altar) in a manner that implies disrespect. Now the following statement follows logically à fortiori: How is it in the case of stones which have no sense (feeling) to be particular about any disrespect shown to them? Scripture ordains that since they serve some useful purpose you should not treat them in a manner that implies disrespect! Then in the case of your fellow-man who is made in the image of your Creator and who is particular about any disrespect shown to him, how much more certain is it that you should not treat him disrespectfully! (Mekhilta) (Rashi on Exodus 20:23)

Parashat Yitro describes the Torah’s great scene of revelation, the giving of the Ten Commandments. But what it reveals is how much God insists on remaining hidden.

Three days of sanctification are needed to prepare for God to speak to the people. Touch the mountain on pain of death. God appears in a thick cloud — עָנָן הַכָּבֵד (Exodus 19:16). And when God’s voice finally comes, the people cannot bear it: דַּבֵּר אַתָּה עִמָּנוּ וְנִשְׁמָעָה וְאַל יְדַבֵּר עִמָּנוּ אֱלֹהִים פֶּן נָמוּת — “You speak with us and we will hear; let not God speak with us, lest we die” (20:16). Moses ascends alone into the cloud. The people stand at a distance. At the very moment God chooses to disclose Godself, God multiplies the layers between Godself and God’s audience.

These boundaries are not failures of revelation. They are the revelation. God does not want to be too obvious.

And it is in this context that the Torah gives its last instruction in the parasha: do not build steps to the altar. Build a ramp so that the priest’s nakedness not be exposed on his ascent.

Rashi, reading the Mekhilta, raises a question: the stones the priest traverses cannot see. Who is the priest’s modesty even for? Why legislate modesty before an “audience” incapable of offense? Rashi argues via kal v’chomer: if the Torah demands such care before stones, how much the more so before human beings? The Midrashic tradition reads the juxtaposition of this verse with Mishpatim as though the entire civil code that follows the Revelation at Sinai is built on this principle. In other words, the teaching about care for human dignity in the case of the priest provides a hinge to the next parasha, which treats the myriad ways we must treat even the downtrodden.

But Rashi himself notes that the problem cannot be literal exposure: “although this would not be an actual uncovering of one’s nakedness, since it is written, ‘And thou shalt make for them linen breeches’” — מִכְנְסֵי בָד (Exodus 28:42). The priest is clothed. Thus, it’s not just that the stones don’t see the nakedness. The nakedness itself would never be uncovered even in a wide stride. The problem is what Rashi calls קָרוֹב לְגִלּוּי עֶרְוָה — the stride that is “near to uncovering,” the posture that mimics disclosure even when nothing is disclosed. Erva can exist as a structural possibility, not just as an empirical fact. It is the danger of inappropriate revelation, the making obvious what should be subtle.

The word erva (עֶרְוָה) derives from the root ayin-resh-heh (ע-ר-ה), which means “to pour out” or “to empty.” The same root gives us Rebecca “emptying” her pitcher at the well — וַתְּעַר כַּדָּהּ (Genesis 24:20) — and the Psalmist’s plea, “Do not pour out my soul” — אַל תְּעַר נַפְשִׁי (Psalm 141:8). Nakedness, in the Torah’s grammar, is not a state of the body. It is what happens when the interior is poured into the exterior without mediation.

In Eden, the word for naked is arum — וַיִּהְיוּ שְׁנֵיהֶם עֲרוּמִּים הָאָדָם וְאִשְׁתּוֹ וְלֹא יִתְבֹּשָׁשׁוּ, “the two of them were naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:25). This tells us that erva refers to an ontological and existential dimension of uncovering rather than a mere state of nakedness.

In the prophets, we find a word that looks and sounds like erva, erya (עֶרְיָה): Ezekiel’s foundling, וְאַתְּ עֵרֹם וְעֶרְיָה, “naked and bare” (16:7); Habakkuk’s image of God’s own bow stripped for war — עֶרְיָה תֵעוֹר קַשְׁתֶּךָ (3:9). Even divine power, when unveiled, is a form of nakedness. The arc from arum to erva to erya is an arc from innocence to law to destitution. What connects them is not skin but the act of emptying.

God’s first response to nakedness is to cover it. After the fruit, God makes kotnot or — וַיַּעַשׂ יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים לְאָדָם וּלְאִשְׁתּוֹ כָּתְנוֹת עוֹר וַיַּלְבִּשֵׁם, “garments of skin, and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21). In Bereishit Rabbah, Rabbi Meir’s Torah reads not or with an ayin (עוֹר, “skin”) but or with an aleph (אוֹר, “light”). The fruit created the interior by creating the knowledge that it existed. God’s response was not to undo that knowledge but to honor it. Clothing does not restore innocence. It inaugurates ethics. The animal already has a hide. But human beings needs them made for them.

In the next scene of nakedness in the Torah, we are introduced to erva as a clear boundary and dignity violation: Ham “saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside” — וַיַּרְא חָם אֲבִי כְנַעַן אֵת עֶרְוַת אָבִיו וַיַּגֵּד לִשְׁנֵי אֶחָיו בַּחוּץ (Genesis 9:22). The verb is va-yaged — from the same root as Haggadah, as narration. Ham turned his father’s vulnerability into content.

Shem and Japheth walk backward and cover him. וּפְנֵיהֶם אֲחֹרַנִּית וְעֶרְוַת אֲבִיהֶם לֹא רָאוּ — “Their faces were turned away, and the nakedness of their father they did not see” (9:23). Shem knew his father was naked. Ham had told him. But he refused to convert that knowledge into perception. Noah blesses Shem: וְיִשְׁכֹּן בְּאָהֳלֵי שֵׁם — “May God dwell in the tents of Shem” (9:27). The Shekhinah rests where the instinct to expose or violate the boundaries of others has been restrained.

If the backward walk is the paradigm of covering, its inversion is the pit where Yosef’s brothers throw him. The brothers strip Joseph of his ketonet ha-passim (coat of many colors) — וַיַּפְשִׁיטוּ אֶת יוֹסֵף אֶת כֻּתָּנְתּוֹ אֶת כְּתֹנֶת הַפַּסִּים אֲשֶׁר עָלָיו (Genesis 37:23). Note here the double stripping.

Years later, Joseph hints at what was done to him, via allusi, using the very word erva: מְרַגְּלִים אַתֶּם לִרְאוֹת אֶת עֶרְוַת הָאָרֶץ בָּאתֶם — “You have come to see the nakedness of the land” (42:9). To “see the nakedness” of a place is to find the point where it is unguarded. It is the exposure that occurs wherever there is something precious and insufficiently protected. But while talking about the act of espionage, Yosef hints at their historic violation of his own dignity.

The Torah’s answer to the erva is kanaf (כָּנָף) — a word that means both “wing” and “corner of a garment.” At the threshing floor, Ruth says to Boaz: וּפָרַשְׂתָּ כְנָפֶךָ עַל אֲמָתְךָ כִּי גֹאֵל אָתָּה — “Spread your wing over your handmaid, for you are a redeemer” (Ruth 3:9). To spread the kanaf is to take the corner of your own garment and extend it over another person’s vulnerability; what God does to Adam and Eve when he makes them garments of light; what Shem and Yafet do for Noah when they walk backwards; what the brothers undo when they strip Yosef. The word kanaf appears at the opening of our parasha: ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagles’ wings (עַל־כַּנְפֵ֣י נְשָׁרִ֔ים) and brought you to Me. The wing / corner offers cover. “He will cover you with His pinions, and under His wings you will find refuge.” (Psalms 91:4) The Talmud uses the idiom of “coming under the wings of the Shechina” to refer to conversion to Judaism. This image is brought to life when a person stands under a wrapped tallit and feels wrapped in a divine presence.

When Moses descends from the mountain a second time, after seeking forgiveness for the sin of the golden calf, his face radiates — כִּי קָרַן עוֹר פָּנָיו (Exodus 34:29). The people are afraid to come near him. So he puts on a veil — מַסְוֶה (34:33) — and removes it only when he speaks with God.

The point of these stories is that too much revelation, too much divine theophany, is a kind of metaphysical erva.

The Torah’s model of revelation, then, is not a stripping away, but a sacred covering. We find God in the “wings,” the intentional boundaries that protect the interiority of ourselves, and of the other.

Shabbat Shalom,
Zohar Etz Hasadeh